


Le Vampire

by AkiRah



Series: Beyond Destiny: Short Side Pieces (Entirely Out Of Order) [8]
Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: Beyond Destiny, Brief mentions of Jedi/Theron, F/M, Force Bonds, Inspired by a poem, Marlitharn (OC), Unhealthy Relationships, introspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-30
Updated: 2017-09-30
Packaged: 2019-01-07 08:50:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12229599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AkiRah/pseuds/AkiRah
Summary: Inspired by Charles Baudelaire's "Le Vampire" a look at Marli and Scourge's relationship from its inception to the one time she tried to leave.





	1. Part 1

_Toi qui, comme un coup de couteau,_

_Dans mon coeur plaintif es entrée;_

_Toi qui, forte comme un troupeau_

_De démons, vins, folle et parée,_

_De mon esprit humilié_

_Faire ton lit et ton domaine;_

_— Infâme à qui je suis lié_

_Comme le forçat à la chaîne,_

_Comme au jeu le joueur têtu,_

_Comme à la bouteille l'ivrogne,_

_Comme aux vermines la charogne_

_— Maudite, maudite sois-tu!_

The night after they left Belsavis, Marlitharn remained in the small sparring room long after all the other lights aboard the _Defender_ had been turned off. The ship hovered through space on autopilot and with her eyes closed she imagined that through the artificial gravity she could feel the ship’s idle glide. 

She couldn’t, of course. If she was being honest all she could feel if she closed her eyes was the figure in the cargo bay. Sitting on the edge of a cot provided to him out of courtesy. She still didn’t know if he _needed_ to sleep. She didn’t know how to ask. She didn’t know why it mattered. 

She didn’t like not _knowing_. 

She liked it less than she liked caring about him, _for_ him. 

But not less than she liked longing for him. 

She had no memory of what had transpired while she was enthralled on the Emperor’s fortress but in her dreams there were teeth on her neck and broad shoulders under her palms. She didn’t know if these were memories or just the stirrings of desire that she was failing to squash. 

She was a Jedi. 

Jedi did not give into desire under the most optimal of circumstances, much less in regards to Sith, p _articularly_ the _Wrath Of The Emperor_. 

Folded on the floor, with her eyes closed and her hands folded in her lap, held at her navel, Marli tried to meditate. Meditation had never come easy, but the practice was almost as good as the action. She pushed her thoughts aside and it wasn’t _avoidance_ it was _meditation_. And it was fine to have random thoughts pop into one’s head during meditation. Just push them aside. 

No one could judge her. 

No one would bother her. 

Marli tried to feel the Force flowing freely through and around her. Connecting her to the galaxy. To every living thing. She reached for her crew first, because they were close and familiar and that was easiest. 

Or should have been. 

Since Scourge had joined the crew, it’d been harder. All she could feel when she made herself more aware of the Force around her were weights. The Force was forged into chains that wrapped around her chest like angry serpents and pierced through her center to chain her to someone else. They lead her awareness down. 

Down to the cargo bay

Down into Him. 

She had thought to try and avoid him, outside of their necessary interactions, but he was magnetic. 

_Possibly literally_ , she thought in a snide voice that sounded like Kira. _Bet a magnet could really fuck up SitherPants’s day_. 

A smile clawed its way to Marli’s mouth even as she tried to keep her features placid. 

* * *

If more infuriating people than Lord Scourge existed, Marli had had the good fortune to never meet them. He was condescending and superior while being impossible to rile up. He just looked _disappointed_ when someone tried. But she couldn’t just _dislike_ him because there was so much history there. He weighed his words carefully, and when he spoke it was with a voice deep and fluid enough for her to drown in. He offered his knowledge freely, though he demanded respect for it in turn. He was set in _his_ ways but acknowledged that the Empire had to move forward. 

He praised her when appropriate and admonished when he felt it was needed and he . . . he had _faith_ in her. Solid, unshakable faith that she would defeat arguably the greatest evil the galaxy had ever known. He had given up everything, even if it hadn’t been worth keeping. The Empire he had known for three _hundred_ years declared him a traitor because of his faith in her. 

And _that_ , while everyone else doubted and accused and worried, kept Marli from avoiding him. 

The crew was scared of her, even if they hid it. 

Scourge was not. 

She needed that.

Scourge couldn’t feel anything and she knew it but Marli couldn’t help but ~~hope~~ wonder if the draw was mutual. 

And she hated that. 

And the hate coiled in her stomach like embers and she didn’t know if she hated that she wanted him or if she hated that he didn’t want her in return. That he _couldn’t_ want her in return. 

It didn’t matter one way or another. She was a Jedi and, believe it or not, she had learned her lesson after Ranna Tao’Ven. 

She thought about Leeha Narezz, twisted by the dark side but still enough _herself_ to be driven by her passion for Jormar Chu. Her love. 

Marli thought about her own passion. Her _lust_. She thought about the dreams she had had since leaving the Fortress, how the ones that weren’t full of screams were full of cries. 

It couldn’t had happened. Scourge couldn’t feel. 

She felt the chains around her chest and wondered if they ripped through him. 

She hoped so. 

Just so she wasn’t alone in it. 

* * *

“We need to talk,” Marli said, her voice muted and low. Shame threatened to close her airway but it was now or never and she could hardly think for wanting. And it was more important that her head be clear than that her honor as a jedi remain intact. They’d be on Corellia in an hour.

She needed to be able to think. 

Scourge looked at her, red eyes like pits of lava. He said nothing but after a long moment he tilted his head to the side and said, in a voice that bordered on teasing. “But you’re a _Jedi_.” His eyes glowed. 

Marli frowned. “I can leave then if you’d prefer.” She started to open her mouth to ask how he’d known and then remembered. “Fucking empath.” 

Scourge stood and closed the distance between them. She could feel the chains wrap tighter, crushing her chest so she couldn’t breathe. She was tall but he was taller. She rose up on her toes and touched her lips to his. 

Ranna’s mouth had been gentle, soft and adoring. 

Scourge kissed her like he was trying to pull her into him. His teeth left little cuts in her bottom lip. It was calculated, she knew, performative. Scourge felt nothing for himself, only what he could pull from her. 

She hated that she didn’t mind. That his willingness to pretend was enough. 

The hate was like embers in the pit of her stomach, providing the heat that bled into the spaces between them. Scourge crushed her against his chest. 

_This is a mistake_ , she thought, her thumbs gliding over the tendrils that dripped from his chin. 

The chains tightened. She felt Scourge press against her thoughts and her will and she let him take what he needed, able only to _hope_ that he was as bound as she was.


	2. Part 2

When Kat and Lana left Theron gave Marli a small smile and a bit of an eye roll. “Guess you’ll think twice next time a spy asks you out for a drink.” His mouth crinkled at the corner, lending him a boyish charm she wasn’t entirely prepared for. “Wouldn’t want to go through all this again.” 

“That would depend entirely on the spy,” Marli replied, smiling just as small and just as warmly. “This has been . . . different . . . good, I guess.” 

“I wouldn’t go _that_ far.” Theron took her hand and gave it a small squeeze. “But the company helps. I’ve never really been a team player, relying on someone else has been . . . interesting.” He leaned in a little and Marli mirrored him on instinct. She could feel the chains around her try to tug her back but she turned so she and Theron were facing one another with just enough distance between them that the Grandmaster would only be able to glare if she barged in.

“Relying on someone else is _always_ interesting,” she teased. 

“I’m starting to think I should have started a long time ago.” 

“Even though you got captured and tortured?” Marli brought her other hand up to brush the bruises on his cheek. 

“Good point.” Theron winced and covered her hand with his, holding it to the skin despite the stinging it must have caused. “But I was talking about _you_. Working with you has made this madness worthwhile.” 

Marli flushed, tongue darting out over her dry lips. “I feel . . . much the same.” Her heart thundered and she didn’t _hate_ Theron. She liked him. Someday she might love him. 

She wasn’t sure who moved first but her eyes closed and she stepped forward into the soft lips that pressed lightly against her own. Theron’s hand slid from her hand to her waist to hold her close but not crushed to him. Firm, secure, _safe_ , but not imprisoned. The kiss was gentle, almost hesitant and then deepened as they both relaxed into it. The chains around Marli’s chest burned and tightened with the betrayal. Her stomach felt ill.

She curled her fingers in Theron’s shirt and tugged it out of his pants to brush her fingers against the warm skin of his lower back. He groaned and kissed her harder, coaxing her mouth open. 

She wanted this. Wanted something gentle. 

Marli, her head spinning, swallowed and broke the kiss. “Theron, wait, I--” she exhales, “--I _really_ _really_ want to but I--I can’t.”

Theron furrowed his brow but pulls away respectfully. “Because you’re a Jedi?” There was a despondent note in his tone. An acceptance of the inevitable and she remembered who his mother was and how he was raised. 

She shook her head. “Because of _Scourge_.” 

He looked surprised and then worried and she couldn’t fault him on either. “You and Scourge are--”

“Yes? Sort of I--I _really_ shouldn’t have kissed you.” She carded a hand through her ponytail. “At least not _yet._ I need to--I have to end things with Scourge.” Which she’d been meaning to do anyway. 

Since Corellia. 

More urgently recently. 

“But after . . . if you still want to--” 

“Yes,” Theron told her, squeezing her hand in his, he was stone still, fighting the urge to kiss her again and she knew it because she recognized how the posture mirrored her own. This was nice, though, this was good. She squeezed his fingers in hers. 

They heard footsteps in the hall and stepped away from one another, flushed and slightly disheveled but with enough distance between them to force Kat and Lana or Marr and Satele to at least _wonder_ rather than _know_ what had happened. 

* * *

Scourge was waiting for her on the ship. His eyes narrowed. She could feel his will pressing against her, searching for the source of the guilt and the shame and the elation. “You are _mine_ , Marlitharn,” Scourge reminded her. 

“I’m my own fucking person,” she snapped in response. 

She hated him. 

And the hate was like embers in the pit of her stomach, hotter than anything anyone else could have offered. 

She lay alone that night, aware that she wasn’t finished having that conversation with Scourge. She had to end things _officially_. The empty space on her mattress loomed like the tomb of the sith that should have filled it. 

From the moment she had learned that she and Scourge _had_ fucked on the Emperor’s Fortress, Marli had assumed he had started it. Despite knowing his emotions were not his own. She had been wrong and Master Orgus had shown her. _She_ had pursued him. She had run him down like a pack of akk dogs after a grasser. She had started this. She had used this to fuel her passion and her hate and give her strength. 

The Chains coiled around her throat and made it hard to breath. 

He could feel through her. 

Could she abandon him back to the void after re-acquainting him with joy and fear and longing and _rage_? 

He deserved it. 

But could she? _Should_ she? And for an SIS-- _Ex-_ SIS--Agent she might never see again? Even if Theron hadn’t been a factor what she and Scourge had wasn’t healthy. But it felt natural. There was no lie in his voice when he told her they were destined for this. 

And if it was Destiny, the Will of The Force, did she had the right to fight it?

* * *

Yavin felt _wrong_ the moment the _Defender_ touched down. Marli felt the Force around her like a heavy damp cloth covering her mouth and nose, threatening to drown her. But that doesn’t trouble her half as much as the feeling that she is stronger _here_ than she has ever been anywhere else. The embers Scourge inspires in her stomach catch and blaze and her yellow eyes glow. 

“We should talk, _Jedi_.” Scourge said, clapping one hand on her shoulder before the left the _Defender’s_ shadow. 

Marli’s heart plummeted. He wasn’t wrong. They had to talk, she had to do this officially and she had been avoiding him since the other day, when they left Rishi. 

“Theron Shan is distant, attracted to Katsulas and you have been in a panic over what happens while he is on distant Coruscant and I am right there. You _know_ you’re making a mistake.” 

Marli huffed. “And it’s not one I’m interested in discussing _right now_. We need to deal with the Revanites first, everything else secondary.” She looked over her shoulder at him and bit the inside of her cheek when she met his red eyes. “But, yes. You’re not . . . you’re not fucking wrong. About any of it.” 

“I am aware. We are _bound_ Marlitharn, everything else is a distraction and one we can not afford.” He takes her chin with his thumb and forefinger and kisses her once. “Even if you pursue this delusion, you will return.” 

And he’s right. 

And she hates him. 

_J'ai prié le glaive rapide_

_De conquérir ma liberté,_

_Et j'ai dit au poison perfide_

_De secourir ma lâcheté._

_Hélas! le poison et le glaive_

_M'ont pris en dédain et m'ont dit:_

_«Tu n'es pas digne qu'on t'enlève_

_À ton esclavage maudit,_

_Imbécile! — de son empire_

_Si nos efforts te délivraient,_

_Tes baisers ressusciteraient_

_Le cadavre de ton vampire!»_


	3. The Poem In English

You who, like the stab of a knife,

Entered my plaintive heart;

You who, strong as a herd

Of demons, came, ardent and adorned,

To make your bed and your domain

Of my humiliated mind

— Infamous bitch to whom I'm bound

Like the convict to his chain,

Like the stubborn gambler to the game, 

Like the drunkard to his wine, 

Like the maggots to the corpse,

— Accurst, accurst be you!

I begged the swift poniard 

To gain for me my liberty, 

I asked perfidious poison 

To give aid to my cowardice.

Alas! both poison and the knife

Contemptuously said to me:

"You do not deserve to be freed

From your accursed slavery,

Fool! — if from her domination

Our efforts could deliver you,

Your kisses would resuscitate

The cadaver of your vampire!"

—Translation by William Aggeler, _The Flowers of Evil_ (Fresno, CA: Academy Library Guild, 1954)


End file.
